Uuugggghhhhhh if the people I babysit for don't start treating their new puppy better I WILL explode. And then there will be little pieces of Allie all over their $1.1 million townhouse and I doubt they will be thrilled to clean that up.
So, the people I nanny for part time thought it would be a fun idea to get a puppy since their 9 year old keeps begging for a dog and the neighbors in the complex had a yellow lab puppy and it was "just so cute". These people are away from home about 11 hours a day, and both parents travel extensively for work, sometimes leaving myself and their other part time nanny in charge overnight. Both are Executive VP's of separate companies.
Now, if you haven't vomitted all over your keyboard yet, they decide in the spring that they're going to the pet store to get a dog. Well, there was a lot of me wearing my adoption counselor hat at my nanny job and I finally talked them out of that idea. I ran off some literature on dog breeds, puppy care, training, adopting and, since they were so stuck on a lab, tips for finding a "reputable" breeder. They didn't talk about the dog for several months, so I figured that they had forgotten the idea and weren't serious about it and they were just being mean and stringing their poor kid along who was SO SURE they were getting a puppy.
So, I show up to work one day...and there's this puppy. Great. Let's go over th enumber of things that are wrong with this picture:
1. They're away 11 hours a day, and I'm only there for 5. So that's 6 hours with no stimulation or anything.
2. THEY KEEP THE DOG'S CRATE IN THE GARAGE. They think they're crate training, but they really have not the faintest idea what crate training actually involves. They think crate training means shoving the dog in the garage when they can't be home, and then letting it run around peeing on everything when they are. Not that the dog is allowed anywhere in the house or on any furniture or near anything.
3. The 9 year old who beged for the puppy is now afraid of it. It's because he puppy-mouths and chews, which to my limited understanding is PERFECTLY NORMAL BEHAVIOR. So she shrieks and runs away and will barely help when the dog is inside.
4. The dog is eating crap grocey store food and eating Milkbones and it has diarrhea. Um, could it be because you're feeding it enriched wheat flour and basically nothing more?
5. No one cares about routines or consistency. I suggested a potty schedule and I suggested we all use the same commands with him. This has evidentally fallen on deaf ears.
So here I am, researching labs (it is a papered lab, which IMHO is also a strike against them since there are tons of pups or...wait for it...already housebroken adults dogs who need homes), when I DID NOT sign up for a puppy!
I am SO FRUSTRATED with this whole situation! Any sympathy for me or wrath you could direct at these people would help me right now!
So, the people I nanny for part time thought it would be a fun idea to get a puppy since their 9 year old keeps begging for a dog and the neighbors in the complex had a yellow lab puppy and it was "just so cute". These people are away from home about 11 hours a day, and both parents travel extensively for work, sometimes leaving myself and their other part time nanny in charge overnight. Both are Executive VP's of separate companies.
Now, if you haven't vomitted all over your keyboard yet, they decide in the spring that they're going to the pet store to get a dog. Well, there was a lot of me wearing my adoption counselor hat at my nanny job and I finally talked them out of that idea. I ran off some literature on dog breeds, puppy care, training, adopting and, since they were so stuck on a lab, tips for finding a "reputable" breeder. They didn't talk about the dog for several months, so I figured that they had forgotten the idea and weren't serious about it and they were just being mean and stringing their poor kid along who was SO SURE they were getting a puppy.
So, I show up to work one day...and there's this puppy. Great. Let's go over th enumber of things that are wrong with this picture:
1. They're away 11 hours a day, and I'm only there for 5. So that's 6 hours with no stimulation or anything.
2. THEY KEEP THE DOG'S CRATE IN THE GARAGE. They think they're crate training, but they really have not the faintest idea what crate training actually involves. They think crate training means shoving the dog in the garage when they can't be home, and then letting it run around peeing on everything when they are. Not that the dog is allowed anywhere in the house or on any furniture or near anything.
3. The 9 year old who beged for the puppy is now afraid of it. It's because he puppy-mouths and chews, which to my limited understanding is PERFECTLY NORMAL BEHAVIOR. So she shrieks and runs away and will barely help when the dog is inside.
4. The dog is eating crap grocey store food and eating Milkbones and it has diarrhea. Um, could it be because you're feeding it enriched wheat flour and basically nothing more?
5. No one cares about routines or consistency. I suggested a potty schedule and I suggested we all use the same commands with him. This has evidentally fallen on deaf ears.
So here I am, researching labs (it is a papered lab, which IMHO is also a strike against them since there are tons of pups or...wait for it...already housebroken adults dogs who need homes), when I DID NOT sign up for a puppy!
I am SO FRUSTRATED with this whole situation! Any sympathy for me or wrath you could direct at these people would help me right now!
